‘Tough cookie’ Forest wins second Paralympic medal

Viviane Forest of Canada competes in the Women's Visually Impaired Giant Slalom during Day 5 of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympics at Whistler Creekside on March 16, 2010 in Whistler, Canada.

Photograph by: Hannah Johnston
, Getty Images

WHISTLER, B.C. — Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow the consistency of a slush cone, not even a pulled groin could keep Viviane Forest from the swift completion of her appointed runs Tuesday.

The petite skier from Montreal by way of Edmonton won her second medal of the 2010 Paralympics under conditions most foul at the Dave Murray course at Whistler Creekside, a feat achieved by blocking out the pain from an injury that required an ambulance trip between runs for medical relief.

Forest, 30, took up skiing only four winters ago and in 2009 she won five Crystal Globes on the World Cup circuit for visually impaired skiers. It is her goal to be on the podium in every one of the five events in which she is entered at Whistler, and she’s on schedule with a silver in the slalom on Sunday and a bronze in Tuesday’s giant slalom. Her medal was the seventh for Canada following four days of competition in the games for adaptive athletes. Five of those medals have come in alpine skiing.

Jean-Francois Rapatel, the high-performance director for the Canadian para-alpine team, rightly describes Forest as a “tough cookie”, and indeed she had to be as unyielding as a hardtack biscuit to get through the giant slalom.

“It could tell from the way she was skiing that she was in pain,” Rapatel said. “She was just trying to survive the run. She wasn’t skiing at her best, just trying to make it down. But she did an unbelievable job, considering the circumstances.”

While Forest finished more than 14 seconds behind gold medallist Henrieta Farkasova of Slovakia, there was some doubt that she would even show up for her second run. On her first, she caught an edge on the rutted snow, fell and re-injured herself. But she hiked up a couple of metres to the start and was allowed a re-do. Forest sustained her original injury in training with guide Lindsay Debou of Whistler at Panorama, B.C.

“I didn’t know if it would be possible for Viviane to do a second run,” said Debou, who has been working with Forest for the past two seasons. “But she’s so strong and her mental game is peaking right now. Maybe, physically, she’s not as strong as she could be. But her willpower overcomes it, and she’s showing her true colours.”

Between runs, Forest was taken by ambulance to be worked on by physiotherapists and the Canadian medical team to prepare her for second trip down the mountain. Skiers are ranked by the cumulative times from two runs in the giant slalom.

On her second run, Forest caught an edge on the soft snow and nearly wiped out again. But she held on and made it across the finish line, before collapsing in a heap. She was led away to the medical tent and declined post-race interviews.

“The whole way down, I was encouraging her — ‘You can do, you can do it,’ ” Debou explained. “She was really fighting it. Those (groin) muscles are really important for skiing. Every single turn, she’s using those muscles. It’s pretty much a stabbing pain. If that’s not mental toughness, I don’t know what is.”

Forest won gold medals at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Paralympics in the sport of goalball, a game specially adapted for blind athletes who play three-on-three with a ball equipped with bells to aid in location. But while blindfolds are mandatory in goalball — to level the playing field for competitors with differing degrees of visual impairment — helmets, apparently, aren’t required. Forest had to give up the sport following a series of concussions.

Now, after turning to skiing with phenomenal success, her goal is to become the first Canadian athlete to win gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games.

“We’re going for gold in the downhill for sure,” Debou says. “We won the training run, and I have no doubt in my mind we’ll be on the top of the podium. We’re really lucky. We have the best support staff here, so we have everything in our favour.”

That includes the 26-year-old Debou, who grew up skiing on Whistler Mountain and could literally ski down the course with her eyes closed, as she has done before to feel the sensation of being sightless. Forest is affected with albinism and retinal pigmentosa and has 96 per cent vision loss. Many visually impaired skiers, however, can make out the shape of the guide skiing just ahead of them. Two-way radio communication embedded in the helmet of each athlete enables the guide to talk the skier down the mountain.

“I just try to describe what I’m feeling, and that makes for good skiing,” Debou says.

In the men’s visually impaired giant slalom, Chris Williamson of Markham, Ont., finished half a second away from a bronze medal with a fourth-place finish behind gold medallist Jakub Krako of Slovakia. Williamson, who was sixth in Sunday’s slalom, was 2.66 seconds behind Krako’s winning time.

“It’s not the greatest feeling,” Williamson said. “We made up some time overall, skiing much better on the second run. I’ll just put these races behind me. I’m looking forward to the downhill.”

Canada was not represented in either of the women’s or men’s sit-down giant slalom events after Josh Dueck of Vernon, B.C., a silver medallist in the slalom, decided to forego the GS to save himself for later races.

Martin Braxenthaler of Germany, Christoph Kunz of Switzerland and Takeshi Suzuki of Japan took gold, silver and bronze medals in the men’s event.

Alana Nichols and Stephani Victor gave the U.S. the gold and silver in the women’s sit-down giant slalom with Kuniko Obinata of Japan capturing the bronze.

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